Boston, MA 05/06/2014 (wallstreetpr) – In the latest among several safety options being undertaken by the company, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) is recalling 51,640 sport-utility vehicles (SUV). The reason for such a recall is said to be a software flaw, which does not take into account the correct fuel levels to be recorded and read.
The problem in question
Agreeing to a notice on the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) website, a flawed engine control module in Chevrolet Traverse, GMC Acadia and Buick Enclave SUVs of 2014 can lead to empty fuel tanks or stalled engines. This in turn might lead to a number of crashes.
General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) said it would recalibrate the fuel system completely free of charge.
GM’s history of other instances
This present recall of SUVs follows that of previous recalls made by General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) including the recent one of 2.59 small cars believed to have faulty ignition switches. This problem led the keys to steal out of their “on” state, hence ignoring the power and disabling airbags. In fact, GM has used up a charge of $1.3 billion in the quarter ending March 31 in order to cover recall costs.
Federal safety regulators, comprising of the Congress and the Justice Department, are looking into why it took the auto company a decade to recall the cars, after these vehicles were linked to 13 deaths in the past. Liken that to the present scenario, it led the automaker just eight days to recall, after being advised about the fuel gauge software flaw in certain SUV models.
In fact, the head of NHTSA’s defect investigations, last year accused GM of being slow in communicating and acting on recalls.
In 2005, General Motors Company (NYSE:GM) had dismissed complaints regarding faulty ignition switches, stating that it was not a security hazard. Nevertheless, in 2010 GM recalled some thousands of cars to address the same problem.
When Mary Barra became the CEO of GM in 2011, regulators were investigating steering issues of the Saturn Ion. These Ions were not recalled until March 2014, when Barra testified to the House Energy and Commerce Committee on faulty ignition switches.
